Archive for the ‘Bike Polo’ Category

Finally I came to Chengdu mainly to see how the Natooke Chengdu shop is doing and see what is happening here in the cycling scene. It was easy to spontaneously convince the Larry and Jake to play a little bit of bike polo today – even though it was a Friday and it was in the daytime. Unfortunately Jake had to stay in the shop take care of it. We did not post this polo meet up anywhere so just a few people came, but we were enough to play polo.

The average age of the Chinese people that showed up was slightly higher than in Beijing.

She actually was just passing by and found the game interesting. She then stopped and chatted with us. So we gave her the mallet and she right away jumped on her bike to try it out. But after a while she understood that she might first need to get some practice with the mallet and ball but not riding a bike. So she started running around the court getting the feeling for the mallet.

I asked her how old she was and she answered that she is getting younger every day. She had amazing energy and ball handling skills.

Our Beijing bike polo coach Tom arranged a special bike polo session during this Spring Festival holiday. So today we met up at the usual winter time of 2pm at our usual spot at the West side of the Worker’s Gymnasium as every weekend.

As it is Chinese New Year most of our Chinese bike polo players were celebrating with their families or otherwise engaged. So except for Honghong only foreigners showed up.

Actually another reason why only 8 people came could be the hazardous pollution level we had again in Beijing.

We had an air pollution maximum of over 400 just when we started playing! I was happy because of course I have my great Respro anti-pollution mask designed for urban use and sports to protect myself from all the particles down to the PM10, PM2.5 and even sub micron size. Actually most of us use Respro anti-pollution masks. My Respro Techno mask is in the so called „Ines“ pink color.

I also had my Ribcap helmet cap which is so great for bike polo. Here are pictures of two Beijing Natooke bikes and the Beijing pollution haze.

After polo we packed up to go to a restaurant bar and have oven baked pizza and fresh waffles with loads of maple sirup, chocolate and whipped cream. Here is a creative way of carrying 2 bike polo mallets (the Respro mask and the green Ribcap fit well):

Two Natooke bike polo teams as well as our own Natooke bike polo coach went to Taiwan last December. We had a Natooke men and a Natooke girls team. Today I saw the official video of the Takao Cup of Asian Hardcourt Bike Polo Championships 2011 in Kaohsiung Taiwan. Watch on youtube.

I also stumbled across another video of our Natooke team dancing away and trying to get others to join in. it is hilarious. It is always fun with the Natooke guys! Here’s the link

My pictures from the bike polo cup are all on the Natooke website in this gallery.